Alfred SCHNITTKE (1934-1998)
Twelve Penitential Psalms (1988) [48:19]
Three Sacred Hymns (1983) [6:30]
RIAS Chamber Chorus/Hans-Christoph Rademann
rec. February 2015, Jesus-Christus-Kirche Dahlem, Berlin
HARMONIA MUNDI HMC902225 [54:49]
Schnittke’s Penitential Psalms (in a Freudian
keyboard-slip I just wrote “Penitentiary Psalms") are tough, rewarding
music. This recording is only my second exposure to these works and the first
meaningful impression of them, despite being a fairly committed Schnittke-listener.
They come twenty years after the premier recordings were made on Chandos (with
the Danish National Radio Choir) and some 17 years after the second recording
– on ECM (with the Swedish Radio Choir, there called “Psalms of
Repentance”) came out. From 2011 there is a recording on Hänssler (SWR
Vocalensemble - review).
This is the other version I have, though I confess having given it only cursory
listening until now – my considerable loss, as it turns out.
Now the RIAS Chamber Chorus has taken to the Penitential Psalms.
There are complaints on Amazon reviews that the Danish singers on Chandos
aren’t quite nailing what’s in the score. Whether that’s
a fair assessment or not I don’t know, but even without a score we know
the notes are written exactly as it sounds here, because the RIAS Chamber
Choir under Hans-Christoph Rademann (arguably the world’s best such
ensemble) can be trusted to reproduce the music accurately, if nothing else.
Beyond that considerable technical challenge, fortunately, they also invest
the music with fervor so that it never sounds cerebral or dry or academic
but instead written with an urgency, with passion, even warmth. No mean feat
for something that might be described as ‘50 minutes of a capella
dissonance’. But it’s a dissonance with holes broken through,
like Jean Nouvel’s Louvre Abu Dhabi building or a piece of intricate
crochet work. When conventional harmonic beauty shines through, as it does
in the Ninth Psalm (“I have reflected on my life as a monk” –
the texts are taken from a 16th century collection of anonymous
texts from a monastery), it’s a beauty that we may know from Rachmaninoff’s
All Night Vigil or orthodox chant-like solemnity and calm (but no
Orlando di Lasso), which the work radiates. There’s plenty old Russian
church music to be smelled, but none of the polystylistic mayhem and none
of the melting chords or rambunctious neo-somethingisms that make Schnittke
so exacerbating to some and so much fun to others.
On the surface Schnittke’s Penitential Psalms are difficult
music for (Western) ears to grasp, but already on first listening it made
its way through the barriers and thorns to the heart. When this barren, austere
music was over – softly, tenderly, a bocca chiusa (with a closed
mouth) – it made me quietly sad. Thankfully – and fitting the
very mood the music created – the three beautiful and uplifting Three
Sacred Hymns for eight voices follow on the Harmonia Mundi disc as
a conclusion. A more catholic (think perfume and incense) sound-world than
the orthodox browns and muted earnestness of the Psalms, this is
in some ways a harmonious tonic and an uplifting conclusion to this recording,
given in a relaxed and slowly blossoming reading.
Following the excellent liner notes, including Rademann’s comments on
the recording (Schnittke’s widow acted as language- and expression coach),
I gather that the Russian speaker will get still more out of this text- and
word-conscious music, but to a lesser degree so will the person following
the quadrilingual – Russian-German-French-English – libretto.
I wonder if this recording would be something that Robert Reilly and I could
recommend in a third edition of “Surprised By Beauty” (A Listener’s
Guide to the Recovery of Modern Music), where Schnittke doesn’t have
a chapter as of the second edition which has just jumped off the presses at
Ignatius Press. No, on one hand, because the dissonance and the challenges
of these Psalms are a significant hurdle for anyone who called it
quits at late Schumann and needs convincing and subtle coaxing to give Janáček’s
String Quartets a try, or Geirr Tveitt. But then anyone with an earnest desire
to invest in the process of listening, and receptive to an honest, earnest
sense of faith and humanity which this music so clearly expresses, might ‘get
it’ and benefit from such a recommendation. I don’t know the answer
but I know I am moved by this music in this performance and others will be,
too, whoever they turn out to be.
Listening to this music a) loud or b) on good headphones is much recommended
(you’re lucky if you have electrostatic headphones at hand); their intimate
beauty, especially on second and third listening, benefits from it greatly.
There’s very little to choose between the Hänssler and the Harmonia
Mundi release. I find the latter to have a slightly more Russian tone and
atmosphere to them, a more direct recording, more exacting and unafraid of
strident tones and if you listen really, really closely, sparrows are audible
from outside the church in which it was recorded. The Stuttgarters under Marcus
Creed have a somewhat warmer and more beautiful sound to them. Creed &
Co, which come with the slightly more substantial addition of Voices of
Nature instead Three Sacred Hymns, have the potential advantage
of SACD surround sound; in stereo (SACD vs. CD) the difference in sound quality
is negligible.
Jens F. Laurson
Ionarts blog
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